'Reversal of Fortune', Part 8

'Reversal of Fortune', Part 9

'Reversal of Fortune', Part 10

'Reversal of Fortune', Part 11

This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>>in police work a good tip can make your day. and it can also make your life a lot more complicated. just such a tip came to the desk of the detective working the
kathleenpeterson
case.

>>i think it was two or three days after her death is when i first had contact with the family members of
elizabeth
rally.

>>elizabeth
rally was the mother of the two girls that
michael peterson
was raising,
margaret
and martha.
elizabeth
's relatives had a story to tell about what had happened to her, another woman in
michael peterson
's life on another staircase. let's leave the house on cedar street for a few moments and go back in time, almost 20 years. across the atlantic to germany. frank furt in the early
1980s
.
michael peterson
was living with his first wife patty and their two sons near a
u.s. air force
base.
michael
was working on a novel while she taught
grade school
to children of the military.
margaret
and martha's mother
elizabeth
worked alongside patty.

>>michael
and patty were our parents'
best friends
. i remember actually patty was saying that our
birth mother
was like a sister to her.

>>whether the girls' father and
air force
officer died on a mission, the
peterson
's and the rest of the community stepped up to help. it took for a couple of years for the widow to pull herself together. but just as she rediscovered some zest in life, death found the ratliff family again. it was
november 24th
,
1985
.
elizabeth
and her young daughters had gone to the
peterson
's for dinner. later
michael peterson
brought them home. the next morning another good friend of the circle and her husband were summoned to
elizabeth
's
town house
by the girls' hysterical call. come, there is a horrible accident. she already rounded up
michael peterson
a few doors down.

>>as we walked in,
michael
was at the bottom of the staircase.
liz
was covered with a coat. there was a puddle of blood going from where she was laying all the way down under the staircase.

>>elizabeth ratliff
was dead. she skid him what happened.

>>he said she probably had an aneurysm like her father. when i started to think about someone falling down the
stairs
, i thought well that's possible. the
stairs
are, you know, pretty aneurysm like her father. when i started to think about someone falling down the
stairs
, i thought well that's possible. the
stairs
are, you know, pretty steep and, you know, they're slippery and wooden.

>>but as
amy
thought about it, there was just too much blood for a slip and fall. blood not just where
elizabeth
lay but high up along the staircase walls, too.

>>if you fell down the
stairs
, why would there be blood splurted up the side of the wall? it didn't make any sense to me.

>>and she said there were household details out of order. like the table that
liz
set out every night with the girl's breakfast plates. it was bare. the snow boots she left by the front door, still on her feet.

>>liz
never wore her boots in the house. she always took her boots off. that was another clue to me that something was wrongment she was either running for someone or trying to escape.

>>had
elizabeth
been attacked before? had her death not been by
natural causes
?
amy
beth thought a full fledged investigation would ensue, but as she tells it,
michael peterson
spoke to the news that day and said she had been complaining of severe headaches and she had a hereditary bleeding disorder. perhaps she had a stroke and fallen down the
stairs
. the questions
amy
beth expected to be asked never were.

>>i thought why aren't they talking to people? why aren't they asking questions? no one did.

>>margaret
, there's been an accident.
liz
fell down the
stairs
and died. what you are saying? i just totally went numb.

>>margaret
could not believe it.

>>i mean my sister. he's saying she died. she's young. she has two beautiful
little children
. babies, really. and, of course, i have a thousand questions afterwards.

>>but any questions regarding
foul play
in
elizabeth
's death were laid to rest by the results of an autopsy performed at a
u.s. army
hospital in germany.
elizabeth
died, the examiner said, from a brain recommendage,
natural causes
. her body was flown to texas for burial beside her husband. at the funeral, sister
margaret
anxious for further details wasn't going to hear anything more from
michael peterson
.

>>michael
was very aloof and very strange.

>>did he speak?

>>no. he didn't really say a lot at all. he never talked about what happened to
liz
.

>>liz
's will had designated the petersons and not her family as the girls'
legal guardians
.

>>you didn't that i was strange?

>>well, actually, you know, i can understand how that could happen. this was her world now.
liz
loved these people. and trusted him.

>>not long after the new
peterson
family now with two boys and two girls moved back home to
north carolina
. the marriage of patty and
michael
though wouldn't last.
michael
struck up a relationship with
kathleen
. then there was their decade together raising kids, his
best seller
, her
business success
, her
social world
. fast forward. to december
2001
and comes the uncanny, eeri parallel involving another death on another staircase.
margaret
,
elizabeth
's sister, got a call from one of the girls.

>>she said,
margaret
, there's been an accident.
kathleen
fell down the
stairs
and died.

>>i'm like, do you know what you're saying? the same thing happened to
elizabeth
. she said, i know.

>>margaret
decided she had no choice but to
pick up the phone
and call the detective working the
kathleenpeterson
case.

>>do you know that my sister in
1985
had an accident. she fell down the
stairs
and died and
michael
was the last person to be with her?

>>its detective did not know that.

>>here i have two women that appear to die the same way. two women that are associated with
mike peterson
.

>>the detective started digging into the
elizabeth ratliff
story. he learned that pathologist who attributed
elizabeth
's death to
natural causes
back in
1985
couldn't say for certain what had caused her
brain hemorrhage
. had she been the victim of a stroke, a fall, or
foul play
? the
north carolina
authorities decided the only way to know for sure would be to have the body exhumed from the grave in texas and look for themselves. disturbing what they found.